Fiasco in Hanoia

[drbrumley]

A LONG WAY TO GO FOR DINNER
By Eric S. Margolis
March 2, 2019

President Donald Trump’s air trip to Vietnam cost taxpayers $5,695,000 just for the president’s flying Taj Mahal. Plus millions more for his retainers, the presidential limo, hotel rooms, meals, security details and only Ho Chi Minh knows what else.

For what? A nice photo op and a cheery dinner for the two leaders in Hanoi. Just about everyone who follows Asian affairs knew in advance that North Korean dynastic strongman (aka king) had no interest or good reason for giving up his nuclear program. The director of US national intelligence, Dan Coates, told Trump as much last week.

Trump’s insistence that North Korea scrap most or even all of its nuclear weapons in exchange for a moderate lessening of US sanctions looked like a non-starter before Trump left for Hanoi. It’s very likely that arch war-monger John Bolton, who sabotaged previous nuclear deals with Iran and North Korea, played a major role in this fiasco.

 

[TrumpTrainCA]

Since there are two identical threads on the same subject I will repeat my response:

The shortsightedness of the thread topic is Amazing. Let's compare what Trump did to what Obama did.

Obama gave away truck loads of cash in the middle of the night to the number one terrorist nation in the world, and all he got for it was a fake treaty that was unenforceable.

But Trump? He did not give away one single thing. Trump DID manage to obtain a few takeaways, getting prisoners returned and stopping nuclear missile testing. Not quite what we wanted but it's something. But what did he give away? Nothing, not a darn thing,

Unlike the buffoon Obama who gave away the store, Trump gave away nothing and at least got a few things anyway. That makes him a winner. That alone makes this thread ridiculous.

But let's look at the wider picture and get out of the OP's shallow thinking. Trump is already winning for the upcoming China negotiations. By walking out of the North Korea negotiations he already laid down the marker for China and told them in no unmistakable terms that he will not be satisfied with a few peanuts. He is a man who gets everything he wants or else he walks away, and now China knows it. China is bleeding money right now from every vein thanks to Trump and they need Trump to stop what he is doing. If they come to him with a few little peanuts the negotiations will fail and they know it. Right now we are hurting China in Trump will get what he wants at the China negotiation.

Smart people are seeing this North Korea visit in The Wider context. Trump is a million moves ahead of never-Trumpers and is already looking at China.